Fede wrote:Everybody who experiences pain, suffers pain, in the physically sensitive way. I cut myself, it hurts, you cut yourself - it still hurts.But I don't dwell, lament, complain, bemoan, throw a hissy fit, that I cut myself. I simply think, "That was careless" and move on.I suffer pain, but I do not suffer the mental lamentation of having suffered physical pain.

Hi Fede,A cut? Sure, just move on. But let's not trivialize. There is an immense amount of physical suffering/dukkha in the world, that doesn't go away in 10 minutes like a cut-- relentless pain from hunger, disease, bodily deterioration, etc. That's the kind of pain I was referring to in my response.

octathlon wrote:There is an immense amount of physical suffering/dukkha in the world, that doesn't go away in 10 minutes like a cut-- relentless pain from hunger, disease, bodily deterioration, etc. That's the kind of pain I was referring to in my response.

As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One, "Lord, I am a feeble old man, aged, advanced in years, having come to the last stage of life. I am afflicted in body & ailing with every moment. And it is only rarely that I get to see the Blessed One & the monks who nourish the heart. May the Blessed One teach me, may the Blessed One instruct me, for my long-term benefit & happiness."

"So it is, householder. So it is. The body is afflicted, weak, & encumbered. For who, looking after this body, would claim even a moment of true health, except through sheer foolishness? So you should train yourself: 'Even though I may be afflicted in body, my mind will be unafflicted.' That is how you should train yourself."

To study is to know the texts,To practice is to know your defilements,To attain the goal is to know and let go.

- Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo

With mindfulness immersed in the bodywell established, restrainedwith regard to the six media of contact,always centered, the monkcan know Unbinding for himself.

Fede wrote:Everybody who experiences pain, suffers pain, in the physically sensitive way. I cut myself, it hurts, you cut yourself - it still hurts.But I don't dwell, lament, complain, bemoan, throw a hissy fit, that I cut myself. I simply think, "That was careless" and move on.I suffer pain, but I do not suffer the mental lamentation of having suffered physical pain.

Hi Fede,A cut? Sure, just move on. But let's not trivialize. There is an immense amount of physical suffering/dukkha in the world, that doesn't go away in 10 minutes like a cut-- relentless pain from hunger, disease, bodily deterioration, etc. That's the kind of pain I was referring to in my response.

Please don't be patronising and accuse me of trivialising.One of the greatest lessons I ever learnt on Suffering - the kind you describe - was from this man. http://www.korubo.com/TIBETDOC/palden.htmThis was the same man who, once he reached Dharamsala, expressed that his greatest fear during all his years of incarceration, was that he would lose his Compassion for the Chinese.

I know and understand what you are talking about.I was couching it in terms which would have made it easier for us to equate with.Since you've upped the ante, I trust my example is adequately explanatory.

I really wasn't trying to up an ante. I didn't dispute the correctness of your original statement or intend my post to be a personal attack on you. My reaction was an "ego-feeling-insulted response" about a perceived attitude in the way you expressed it--that word "optional", which I pointed out was only a perception. Sometimes I feel intense compassion for others, but other times I find it very difficult to feel any compassion. I feel guilty about that so I may have been projecting when I reacted to your statement. I wanted to stick up for all those people for whom, in our present state, it isn't optional.

The second one about not moaning and having a hissy fit about a cut, though, I did feel was trivializing the issue.

Now I've seen anukampaa [shaking-together?] in a few suttas, googled some defs and articles...what is the difference between it and karuna/symathy/compassion?Did you feel anukampaa? karunaa? both? neither...a near enemy? How can you tell?

Blackwell Reference wrote:Anukampa The motivation which impels a Buddha and his Arahat disciples to teach. Anukampa, ‘sympathy’, which leads them to give help to the world at large, is distinguished from karuna, ‘compassion’, which refers to the meditational practice of extending compassion to all living beings. In later Buddhism, especially the Mahayana, karuna is used for both purposes and the concept of the wider compassion (mahakaruna) of a Buddha is introduced. http://www.blackwellreference.com/publi ... 922_ss1-95

Reading the various definitions, I couldn't tell the difference between them. Only that entry I quoted above makes a distinction. Anyway, I felt it in English at the time.

Also, I apologize for the off-topic intrusion into your thread. Fede and I are done with that now.

Of course the best possible thing would have been if there were no literal rebirth, and if there was only one life... Then we all would achieve parinibbana at death... That would be so awesome, and there would be very quick and easy shortcuts for Parinibbana. Too bad it might not be the case.

See this only works within the confines of having the view of rebirth "either there is rebirth or it all ends in death". There is no point in clinging to either in my opinion, since Buddha clearly taught the abandoning of view points, that is not taking them up. In light of this the view "there is rebirth" is a thicket of views and a cause of much clinging and dukkha as is the view "there is no rebirth". They both are objects that people cling to deeply, thus causing dukkha

Also your view that killing one self to reach nibbana without remainder is a speculative view, something I think may come from your insistence that physical pain is dukkha (which ignores the 2nd noble truth that craving and clinging to OBJECTS is dukkha)

I apply pascal's wager. I'll do my best to learn, understand, develop wisdom and cut down fetters to stop rebirth as soon as conditions allow. If rebirth exists, it will be good. If there will be no continuation after this miserable life, then I won't mind .

Good for having a mind of wholesome states, not necessarily good for nibbana though

Alex123 wrote:But pain is pain. Pain is dukkha and it is out of total control.

Pain is only physical if you remove the mental suffering associated with it. That will not make life suffering in itself. Did the Buddha lead a miserable life after enlightenment or did he dwell in peace born from relinquishment?

Pain is pain. While the Buddha was in peace inside, He did experience LOTS of pain. Ex in DN16.

Of course pain is pain. There is no need to mentally suffer due to physical pain. The Buddha never said to escape life and that existence is dukkha. He said "mental clinging" is dukkha. The cause of dukkha is thanha

A History of Buddhist Philosophy by David Kalupahana, p.95: "The fact that the person who has attained freedom continues to experience through the same sense faculties he possessed before, and that he continues to have agreeable [manapa] and disagreeable [amanapa], sukha and dukkha experiences, is clearly admitted by the Buddha(29) [note 29 is missing on google books preview]."

There is no need to quote suttas and the "History of Buddhist Philosophy" to state a simple fact that physical pain is pain. When the Buddha stuck his leg on a stone he would have felt pain. He had a nerves system.

Point is, there is a difference between phyiscal pain and the associated mental suffering. Suffering is associated with mental activities for the most part. The Buddha had said "although the body is old and sick there is no need for the mind to be sick". The buddha dwelt in peace which arose from relinquishment despite the fact that he experienced bodily pain. Practice is not centered on parinibbana but nibbana

Sunrise wrote:There is no need to quote suttas and the "History of Buddhist Philosophy" to state a simple fact that physical pain is pain. When the Buddha stuck his leg on a stone he would have felt pain. He had a nerves system.

Point is, there is a difference between phyiscal pain and the associated mental suffering. Suffering is associated with mental activities for the most part. The Buddha had said "although the body is old and sick there is no need for the mind to be sick". The buddha dwelt in peace which arose from relinquishment despite the fact that he experienced bodily pain. Practice is not centered on parinibbana but nibbana

I'm sorry...Isn't this exactly the same discussion Octathlon and I were having....?

I guess the term "lost in Translation" might be appropriate here, but if everybody agrees that there is a difference between the perceived, felt and noted physical "ouch" pain, and the psychologically unnecessary 'pain' of emotionally dwelling on the wound - then what exactly is the issue? If we all know what we mean, isn't that enough?

Fede wrote:I'm sorry...Isn't this exactly the same discussion Octathlon and I were having....?[...] if everybody agrees[...]then what exactly is the issue? If we all know what we mean, isn't that enough?

"It is easier for trained specialists to change their terminology than to re-educate semantically the rest of the human race. I would suggest that terms 'matter', 'substance', 'space', and time' should be completely eliminated from science, because of their extremely wide-spread and vicious and so semantic implications, and that the terms 'events', 'space-time', 'material', 'plenum', 'fulness', 'spreads', 'times'., be used instead. These terms not only do not have the old structural and semantic implications, but, on the contrary, they convey the modern structural notions and involve new semantic reactions. The use of the old terms drags in, unconsciously and automatically, the old primitive and metaphysical structure and semantic reactions which are entirely contradicted by experience and modern science. I venture to suggest the such a change in terminology would do more to render the newer works intelligible than scores of volumes of explanations using the old terminology." -- p.234-235 Science and Sanity: an introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics, by Alfred Korzybski.http://www.rodsmith.org.uk/alfred-korzybski/http://esgs.free.fr/uk/art/sands.htm